Mother Love Bone - Apple + Shine EP aka Stardog Champion poll

I have heard this album but don't really know it, decided to poll it when I couldn't even find a thread about this band on ILM. Looking forward to getting to know it better.

When I moved to Seattle in 1990 Apple had just come out, and there was lots of buzz in the local music community. When I listened to it then it was pretty much not my thing, but a lot has changed in 34 years. I’ll relisten.

oh fuck

tbh this poll is a personal attack on me
how on earth can i choose?????

so many great songs
i love shangrila as an opener it just announces them so well

stardog champion and those kids at the end ZA ZA ZAOWWW

BONE CHINA!?

MAN OF GOLDEN WORDS!?!!?

FUCKING CHLOE CROWN OF THORNS?

i will die if i have to choose

"chloe dancer" (even w/o "crown of thorns") is the single best thing Andrew ever wrote/performed.

^^^ otm

But like VG, I'm really torn. I got really into these guys back in the '90s and kind of imagined an alternate version of history where they blew up in place of Pearl Jam (not saying I'd have preferred this mind, but it was an interesting thought experiment of how the early 90's might have shook out if Wood had survived and they broke through). My general feeling was that watered-down MLB would have gotten much worse, much faster than watered-down Pearl Jam did, but it was a unique album that I think still holds up tbqh. They were just do distinctly weird in a wannabe careerist rock dude way, but they never could completely kill the ambitions that led elsewhere and those influences popped up in the music.

Fwiw, that On Earth As It Is set from 2016 is very cool.

"Come Bite the Apple" gets my vote. This album really isn't my thing, too metal maybe?

Tricky one! Love Shangrila SO MUCH and have vivid memories of listening to this on my Walkman and physically jumping in the air when the guitar solo kicked in. Damn. But also Holy Roller, Stargazer, Man of Golden Words and Crown of Thorns. Oof.

Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns, but listening to this again:

Other highlights: the "I look bad in shorts" line from Shangrila", Stardog Champion. I always liked Bone China.

Man of Golden Words sounds like Dylan's Oh, Sister.

Imo, the more they tried to rock, the worse they were. Their slower, quieter songs are weirder and more interesting to me.

It's so funny now looking back. I lumped this in with grunge/alternative as a clear break from 80s hair metal and adjacent stuff, but listening in the years since it's so close to G&R.

Have not given it a listen in a long time but I always liked the record.

Hard to tell how it all would have went down, but I think it was definitely possible they might have gotten big. I think the video for ‘Stardog Champion’ which was a 120 minutes play at the time might have been made after Wood was dead.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I ended up with the boring answer I was trying to avoid, but I couldn't not vote for "Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns", still my undeniable favorite.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.